Seven works on Go To Mat - Part 4 of Meal Time = Training Time!

If you missed part 1, 2 and 3 of Meal Time = Training Time here they are:

 

Meal Time = Training Time - Part 1

Seven works on Targeting - Part 2 of Meal Time = Training Time!

Seven works on Eye Contact - Part 3 of Meal Time = Training Time!

 

 

Seven and I continue to have lots of fun training.  He's so smart and he gets pretty excited when he sees the clicker.  Funny terrier boy!

 

Our next new skill is called "Go To Mat".  This is a very important skill and moving forward I'm teaching it to all my fosters.  I read an article (wish I would have saved it) that showed data that by teaching a dog to "settle" - it greatly increases their adoptability.  I can't say I disagree with this and you will see that teaching "Go To Mat" is pretty easy and it works on a dog settling down and impulse control.

 

Here's a link outlining Go To Mat 

 

And off we go at Seven's first attempt with the mat.  I have some errors on my part in this video - I wanted to be clicking as soon as he stepped on the mat - I missed a few clicks!  No worry we keep at it. 

 

Seven isn't so sure of this game - he's trying to figure out if we are playing "look". I give him time to sort it out and actually I gave him too much time. I should have helped him sooner by moving my body to get him moving his feet to hit the mat. 

 

But, how cute is Seven in the last couple seconds of this video!

Now I'm moving just a couple steps which is helping him to move.  Nose Work has been invaluable to me, helping me to pay attention and time my own movements - Nose Work just keeps on giving!  By moving a couple of steps that can influence a dog with out using any force with a dog.

 

As soon as Seven touches the mat (any part of the mat)  he gets a click.

 

 

Notice I toss a treat after he has been clicked on the mat.  This is to help him move off the mat on his own - basically it's a reset without using any force and it keeps the game moving along.

 

Catty is outside the gate and Seven is doing excellent.

 

And ta-da look at what the sweet boy does as the end of the video - all on his own.  I wanted to click that clicker 100 times!!

 

We will keep practicing Go To Mat and put it on cue.  However sit and down are on our list of skills to lean on cue and once we have those down we will have a perfect Go To Mat sequence.

 



Seven on his mat



And he made me laugh as the next day he was on the kitchen mat!